The WorkAxle Compliance & Rule Engine is the configurable policy layer that runs every schedule, assignment, and time record through your labor laws, union agreements, certifications, and internal rules. A violation surfaces the moment it is created, set per rule as a warning, and every check lands in the audit trail.
Your rules. Enforced
before they're broken.
Labor laws, union agreements, certifications, overtime limits, rest periods: you codify them once, and the engine checks them across every schedule, every shift, every assignment while the schedule is being built. The conflict surfaces at the moment a scheduler would have created it, as a warning you act on.
Most operations run compliance after the fact, when an email, a grievance, or an audit forces it.
When the rules live outside the system.
An employee's certification expired last week. They worked three shifts since then, and every one of them is now a liability sitting in your records.
In another tab, you're reading a 200-page union agreement line by line because someone filed a rest-period grievance. Your system never knew the rule existed, so it scheduled straight through it.
Then leadership calls about next month's audit. They want proof every shift was compliant last quarter. That proof lives across three spreadsheets, a legacy system nobody fully understands, and your own memory of who approved what.
When the system knows the rules.
The expired certification surfaces before the scheduler can make the assignment, flagged for you to resolve.
The rest-period conflict surfaces at scheduling time, while there's still time to fix it.
The audit report is one export against a complete log, not a week of assembly from scattered sources.
That's what the rule engine does.
The same process whether you have one site or four hundred.
Define rules.
Labor laws, union agreements, certifications, overtime limits, rest periods, seniority. You configure them in the system yourself, in the no-code builder. You don't file a support ticket and wait for a release. Most rules take minutes; complex ones, an afternoon.
System enforces, automatically.
Every schedule, shift assignment, and time record runs through your rules. Edits, swaps, and pickups validate against the ruleset in real time, and each conflict surfaces as a warning as you build. Auto-assignment runs all constraints inside the solver loop, so generated schedules respect your rules from the start.
Simulate before you publish.
Changed an overtime threshold? Dry-run your ruleset against production scenarios and see exactly what changes before a single live schedule moves. The rule builder includes shift-validation and time-evaluation simulation modes. You test the change, then publish it.
Change rules yourself.
A new regulation or a renegotiated union clause: you update it yourself, and it takes effect immediately across every site. Existing schedules re-validate on demand. There's no vendor release cycle between you and compliance.
Every rule your operation runs on. One engine.
Operators evaluate software by what it lets them configure. This is the configuration surface: labor law, union agreements, certifications, and anything specific your operation needs, with multiple collective agreements automated in a single deployment.
| Rule type | Example |
|---|---|
| Labor law compliance | Mandatory rest periods between shifts. |
| Union agreements | Seniority-based scheduling and bid rights. |
| Certification & licensing | Expired licenses gate assignment automatically. |
| Scheduling constraints | Predictive scheduling notice requirements. |
| Overtime management | Approval workflows by tier. Equitable distribution. Pre-publish warnings; every override logged. |
| Attestations | Custom acknowledgements at clock-in. |
| Custom business rules | Anything specific your operation needs. |
If your operation runs on it, the engine can enforce it.
Three differences from anything you've evaluated.
You own the logic.
On most platforms, "configurable" means a support ticket and a three-sprint wait. On WorkAxle, a CBA clause, an overtime cap, a rest-period rule, or a new jurisdiction's law goes into the no-code builder, and the engine enforces it on the next schedule it generates. You write the rules, you change them, you own them.
Enforcement at scheduling time.
Legacy systems flag violations after they happen, which leaves you with a report and a problem already on the books. WorkAxle validates every action in real time as you build, and runs your constraints inside the optimization solver, so the rule surfaces the conflict on the save itself. The violation appears while you can still fix it.
Audit-ready by default.
Every override is logged with timestamp, actor, and reason. Rule changes are tracked the same way: who changed which rule, and when. Because rules are effective-dated, you can reconstruct exactly how a rule stood on any past date, which is what you need when a union files a grievance. When the auditor arrives, you export the report. You don't assemble it.
Where the cost of getting it wrong runs highest.
Security & Guarding
License-gated workAn expired license is more than a risk, it voids the client contract. Licenses are tracked with effective dates, and expiry gates assignment automatically.
See solutions →Public Sector
Election-proof rulesMunicipal services and crown corporations: union agreements, budget oversight, and regulatory frameworks that change with every administration, all codified in the engine.
See solutions →Manufacturing & Processing
CBA-bound linesSeniority rules, rotation guarantees, and safety certifications enforced per CBA. A missed rest rule on a 24/7 line is a grievance by morning.
See solutions →Airport Operations
Credential-heavy opsSIDA badges, ramp certifications, dangerous-goods qualifications, and weather-event re-rostering for catering, de-icing, and ground handling crews, all held inside union agreement constraints while the schedule moves.
See solutions →Retail
Jurisdiction stackingMinor labor laws, predictive scheduling regulations, clopen restrictions, and break premium rules, multiplying across every jurisdiction you operate in.
See solutions →Healthcare
Patient-safety rulesMinimum-rest, ratio, and credential rules where the failure mode is patient safety. Expired credentials gate assignment before the shift publishes.
See solutions →Construction
Site-specific rulesUnion hall dispatch order, trade tickets, and site-specific safety rules, enforced with zero margin for error when the inspector is already on site.
See solutions →Port Operations
Dispatch-order rulesDispatch seniority, safety certifications, and hazardous-cargo rules enforced at assignment, with the audit trail the union expects.
See solutions →Your questions, answered.
Who actually writes the rules, us or you?
You. The rule editor is a first-class product surface that your operations and labor-relations teams use directly. WorkAxle customer engineering helps with the initial encoding of complex CBAs and multi-jurisdiction labor law, but day-to-day rule changes are operator-authored. A new union clause Monday is enforced Tuesday, no vendor sprint, no support ticket, no release cycle.
How long does it take to encode a new collective bargaining agreement?
Initial encoding is measured in days, not months, split between your labor-relations team (who reads the contract) and a WorkAxle customer engineer (who translates clauses into rules). Renewals are faster because the structure is reusable. Multi-CBA enterprises run multiple CBAs in the same engine.
What happens when a regulation changes mid-week?
You update the rule in the editor. It takes effect immediately for every shift not yet worked, and the next schedule-build cycle picks it up automatically. Already-published schedules are flagged for review against the new rule. Most regulation updates go from "we just got the email" to "live in production" the same day.
Can the engine handle conflicts between rules, say, a CBA clause and a state law?
Yes. Every rule carries a priority and a source. When two rules disagree on the same decision, the engine surfaces both, applies the higher-priority one (typically: statute > CBA > internal policy > preference), and logs the conflict in the audit trail. Conflicts are made visible, not silently overridden.
What happens to violations that already exist in our current system?
From the day your rule set goes live, every new schedule and timecard is checked against it. For exposure that already exists, your labor-relations team can scope a review of historical schedule and time data against the same rules during implementation, so you know exactly where you stand before the next audit window.
What does an audit export actually look like?
A CSV or PDF, scoped by date range, jurisdiction, employee group, or rule category. Each entry carries a timestamp, the user, and the rule reference, and for an override, the reason and the approver. Most customers configure two or three saved audit templates (regulator, union, internal) and run them on demand. Audit becomes an export, not a project.
Bring your hardest rule.
Read the thinking behind the engine.
Field notes and analysis on compliance, scheduling, and workforce operations from our team.
Run the WFM Readiness Diagnostic.
Eight questions, about three minutes, no email gate. A read on where your current stack leaves you exposed.
Bring your hardest scenario.
Your most complex CBA. Your newest regulation. Your toughest migration. Bring it to a 30-minute demo.